Purpose: Time-varying system delays and eddy currents can substantially reduce the image quality of spiral images. A new method is proposed to estimate variable system delays for spiral-based trajectories.
Methods: This approach requires a minor modification of a conventional stack-of-spirals sequence and analyzes data collected on three overlapping orthogonal cylinders.
Results: Initial results are presented for acquired and synthesized phantom data and in vivo data.
Conclusion: The proposed method includes gradient coupling effects, requires no phantom measurements or specialized hardware, is robust to off-resonance effects, and estimates independent continuous delays for each gradient channel over the data-sampling period.
Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.